There are a few candidates
The unofficial second half of the 2025 season will kick off on Friday for the Phillies and there are some important players for the team. The most obvious important players are the ones that have led them to this point thus far, your Schwarbers, Turners, Wheelers and Sanchezes. Clump them in with Bryce Harper and you have a quintet of players that, if they are knocked out for any longer period of time, the team’s chances of success in the postseason, should they make it, will take a significant hit.
Instead of focusing on the obvious, let’s think about those less obvious.
By this point in the season, the team has had an inconsistent offense. The latest trip to the west coast was probably the pair of series that best encapsulated this idea where they scored 13 runs in one game, then had to scratch and claw to push runs across the plate in the other five games they played. So, as much as the starting pitching is going to be leaned on these final 60+ games, the offense is going to have to perform if they are to have a chance to raise that precious piece of metal next to Rob Manfred.
And that means Nick Castellanos is going to be important.
Filtering stats on whatever site you use is fun. You can put in whatever you are looking to either confirm or deny an assumption you make. For example, one assumption I had was that the Phillies’ right handed hitters weren’t very good this year, an assumption based on their reported desire to add a right handed bat at the deadline. Yet it’s not as dire as we might think. Right handed hitters for the Phillies have a 100 wRC+ this season, which may not seem like much, but ranks 12th in baseball. While a lot of this might be thought of as Turner’s doing, Castellanos is right there in having a good season at the plate as well. His own 107 wRC+ is right in the middle of qualified right handed hitters this year, not where we might want him to be, but not unplayable….like other Phillies outfielders.
Where the Phillies will need Castellanos to step up is in the power department. We read this week about the team’s emphasis on not chasing pitches out of the zone working for most hitters in the lineup, but coming a bit at the cost of power. Once the games start to get more important and hitters like Schwarber and Harper start seeing fewer pitches to do damage on, it will be incumbent on the hitters lower in the lineup to make the opposition pay. The best way to exact revenge for this kind of approach to pitching is to hit the ball and to hit it over the fence.
We have seen that Alec Bohm’s and J.T. Realmuto’s power output has not been up to par this season (both currently have a slugging percentage under .400), so if there is going to be power coming from somewhere in the bottom half of the lineup, it’s going to have to be Castellanos. There are some data points that aren’t exactly encouraging in this regard. His barrel and hard hit rates are slightly down compared to last year and if the speculation surrounding a deadened ball this season are true, that probably hasn’t aided someone like Castellanos.
However, this is still a highly motivated individual. While the numbers that he has put up don’t scream top tier offensive product, he has been one of the more consistent hitters this season for the Phillies. You know what you’re going to get. For the Phillies, they need him to be a bit more down the stretch.